Apollo BBS Archive - September 1990

Apollo BBS Archive - September 9, 1990

Public & Free Bulletin Board command:$C

Message: 69346
Author: $ Sandi Marlin
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: sun/Rod
Date: 09/09/90  Time: 01:32:35

I don't know about you, but I'm not planning on being around when it
happens. 

Message: 69348
Author: $ Jeff Beck
Category: Answer!
Subject: Ann/bomb
Date: 09/09/90  Time: 05:11:53

One big bomb or a bunch of "little" bombs and the fires they cause...there's
a similarity in terms of destruction.

Message: 69349
Author: $ Jeff Beck
Category: Answer!
Subject: Dean/fraud 1 of 2
Date: 09/09/90  Time: 05:16:01

But we already make case by case determinations based on intent, tacitly,
perhaps, but no less so for that.  It seems to me unavoidable, a logically
necessary consequence of the way we define "fraud."  In message #68749
you defined fraud as "intentional perversion of truth in order to induce
another to part with something of value or to surrender a legal right."
I will agree to this definition, and to the best of my knowledge, it is the
generally accepted definition of the term "fraud."  Clearly, intent is 
something which must be judged on a case by case basis.
I find the phrase "perversion of truth" however, in need of clarification.
Suppose you came into my place of business and accidentally left your
billfold on the counter.  I am in the back room during all of this.  After
you leave, the counter help takes your wallet, tells me about the incident,
and offers to split your money with me.  You later remember that you left 
your wallet on the counter and return to the shop.  You ask me if I have 
seen your wallet anywhere. I answer, (truthfully because I only saw the 
money, not the wallet) "No sir, I have not seen your wallet."  You reply,
"If you find it, will you notify me?"   And answering truthfully to the
literal meaning of your words, I promise to do so.
Now, I have made no false statements.  I merely withheld certain critical
truths.  But would you not agree that I had intentionally perverted the
truth in order to gain something of value from you?
 
(CONT.)

Message: 69350
Author: $ Jeff Beck
Category: Answer!
Subject: Dean/fraud 2 of 2
Date: 09/09/90  Time: 05:16:51

Here's another example:
Let's suppose I retail mail order software.  I place an ad in Byte magazine
for a database program called Superbase 2000.  This program, I truthfully 
claim, has most of the features you would find in super-sophisticated, but 
far more expensive software such as DBASE or ORACLE.  I post a quote by 
Peter Norton from a software review in a trade journal saying "Superbase 
2000 works great..." and another quote by Bill Gates from a review in a
another prominent computer magazine, saying "Superbase 2000 is a real
bargain, just like the ad says..."
The program promises to be IBM and DOS compatible (a truthful claim) so you
"pays your money and takes your chances" as they say at the carnival.
You receive Superbase 2000, and you can't make it work.  You later discover
that the program was written by an amateur who made use of direct DOS calls
whose efficacy depends on a long obsolete version of DOS.  You also find
out that the quotes, while accurate, were taken out of context.  The full
quotes run something like "Superbase 2000 works great, but only if you're
still using DOS 1.1" and "Superbase 2000 is a real bargain...for a collector
of white elephants." Angrily, you write the dealer, who refers you to the 
fine print in the ad which says "no refunds."  
The dealer, who quickly develops a bad reputation, legally changes his
company name, and puts the same product out under a new name in a different
magazine with different ad copy and graphics, the next month.  He prospers.
Despite the fact that he has made no false statements, he has intentionally
perverted the truth in order to induce you to part with something of value.

Message: 69351
Author: $ Jeff Beck
Category: Answer!
Subject: Dean/market 1 of 2
Date: 09/09/90  Time: 05:17:40

Now, I didn't say that capitalism "doesn't work."  I can't say I know what
you mean by that phrase, "doesn't work."  Doesn't work at all?  Doesn't work
fairly?  How much of the time?  What do you mean by "work"?  That capitalism
doesn't support our economy?  I would never say that.  What I said was that
capitalism doesn't work the way you said it does.  First you said that
"To create and maintain an effective monopoly you have to be protected
from the free market and the only power that can do that is the state."
Well, we agreed that the free market didn't work that way.  You also said
that "You cannot produce something at a price which is not related to its
costs of capital and production and stay in business unless you are using
state power to hold the capital hostage or to subsidize the price through
the theft of taxation."  That didn't turn out to be true either.  Next, you
claimed "an arbitrary price scheme cannot fool the market."  I can't think
of any better definition of an arbitrary price unrelated to the costs of
capital and production than $8.89 for a bottle of 200 aspirin.
Now you're talking about how good it is that a well developed firm can be
so efficient that a start-up competitor can't compete.  I concur.  But
that is a straw man argument.  What's efficient about charging arbitrary
prices unrelated to the costs of capital and production?  What does
efficiency have to do with getting a choke-hold on distributorships and
prominent advertising positioning by buying off people to gain exclusive
contracts?  What does efficiency have to do with an industry whose economics
require a substantial market share before a competitor can make a profit?

In your most recent set of posts you say that "The position of leading the
market is purchased at the cost of remaining more efficient than any
competitor and passing that efficiency along in the form of lower prices. I
explained that a supplier in this position can only hold his advantage as
long as he does not try to increase his prices enough to make competing
with him attractive.  Any unreasonable increase in prices brings competing
capital into the market to produce the same product in search of the greater
return on investment which high prices produce."
Again, would you say that $8.89 for a bottle of 200 aspirin is efficient?
That Bayer's efficiency is passed along in the form of lower prices?  That
Bayer can only hold its advantage by charging reasonable prices?  Has
Bayer's outrageous prices broken their domination of the market, or brought
a greater return on investment for the companies which sell the same product
at less than half the price?  This "product differentiation" is one of the
market barriers I mentioned.  Do you think the Pepsi and Coke corporations
which market nine-tenths of the soft-drinks you see on the shelves are more
efficient than some generic soft-drink, which sells for a good deal less?
Can't think of any?  That's because they don't have access to displays and
other prominent advertising.  Remember those "exclusive dealing contracts"
I mentioned?  You don't really think that people drink Diet-Coke "just for
the taste of it," do you?  Is all of this somehow unusual?  No, it's
commonplace.  Commonplace among the big and few companies which dominate
the market in many industries.  
I won't comment on the ALCOA case because I am unfamiliar with it.  

Message: 69353
Author: $ Jeff Beck
Category: Answer!
Subject: Steve/69345
Date: 09/09/90  Time: 06:50:54

Like I said, the "concretes" we sensibly observe.  I defined this in the
last set of messages.  I think you'll be surprised just how little is left,
in a sense, when you subtract the model from the discussion.  That's because
what's left isn't any logical relationships or quantifications.  That
doesn't mean that there is actually so very little left, only it seems that
way because what you expect to find revealed is the very thing we have
filtered out.  Sorry if this isn't satisfying, but it's the best I can do.
 
But perhaps I misunderstand your request.  If you merely require examples of
linguistic usage, here are a couple:
 
(1) The location of my car is my driveway.
(2) I moved my car from my driveway to my garage.
 
That's perfectly concrete.  I would not say "my car is located two feet from
the end of my driveway," or "my car occupies a point X,Y,Z in three space
with the unelevated intersection of Central and Glendale as the origin, with
Central avenue defined as one axis, Glendale defined as another, and an
imaginary line normal to the origin running from the center of the Earth to
the edge of the exosphere as the third."  (Neither would anyone else, of
course, and my intent is not to be sarcastic but merely to show what is
implicit in point-locational descriptions.)
This is not to say that I won't or don't use quantitative descriptions in
ordinary intercourse.

Message: 69354
Author: $ Ann Oudin
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Rod on Japan
Date: 09/09/90  Time: 10:14:23

Yes, the Japanese soldiers were prepared to keep fighting and die for their
cause - but the average peasant was not and that is basically who died.

Where were they going to die for their cause? In Japan only right? So if we
had just stepped back and waiting, they would have came around sooner of
later.
 
Oh - I had forgotten about the fish and Dolphins! Heaven forbid we kill
them! -=*) ANN (*=-

Message: 69355
Author: $ Ann Oudin
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Roger on Japan
Date: 09/09/90  Time: 10:27:18

 I agree that Japan was not totally defeated at that time - but how many
Kamikaze planes and pilots did they have left? A few at best. We could have
moved on Japan on foot and over come them. Their army was almost gone. 
 
OK - lets say we did well on using the bomb on Japan, so I'll ask again
why.... Did we not drop the bomb in the ocean and why did we have to bomb
Nagasaki also????? For one thing, wasn't there somekind of military
installation in Nagasaki and none in Hiroshima? So stands to reason we bomb
Nagasaki and not Hiroshima, right?? -=*) ANN (*=-
 
P.S. If Kamikaze's were a problem on Okinawa - then why didn't we pull out
there and leave them an island with a small island - isolated? We did not
have to finish them off right then! It would have been better to pull out of
Okinawa and totally distroy it to show our strength then what we did!

Message: 69356
Author: $ Roger Mann
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: models/concrete
Date: 09/09/90  Time: 11:03:46

Pretend I am a physicist. I construct a mathematical model of behavior
I have observed. This mathematical model uses four dimensions, x,y,z, and
t as variables in the modelled universe. Then I construct an apparatus that
measures velocity or position and test my theory. In constructing my 
apparatus I assume that the universe has metrics that can be measured.
These metrics are: height, length, breadth and time. Knowing there is no
priveleged frame of reference, I establish a relative one. For example,
when I was a surveyor we used Geodectic survey markers to establish the
position of other objects in the world. What I am doing is mapping my
model onto the universe and testing the behavior of my model by testing
behavior of the universe. The model is my way of understanding the universe.
I am not interested in the model for itself, only in exploiting it's utility
as a tool. Now, from what you have said, you are not interested in the
utility of the model, nor in ultimate reality, but in the model itself.
Am I correct in my assumption ?

Message: 69357
Author: $ Roger Mann
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: ann on japan
Date: 09/09/90  Time: 11:08:25

Dropping the bomb in the ocean might have worked. We will never know.
Don't forget that we had fire-bombed Dresden and Tokyo by then. I suspect
the military did not believe in a non-military target. I think there was
a debate in HST's councils on the best way to proceed. It would be 
fascinating to have records of those discussions{

Message: 69358
Author: $ Daryl Westfall
Category: Religion
Subject: Ann / "Temptation"
Date: 09/09/90  Time: 11:42:33

    Ann, "The Last Temptation of Christ" profaned Jesus Christ Himself. The
film was a perversion of the Biblical account, and a direct attempt to turn
and twist God's revelation concerning His Son into a lie.
    I do not feel that the author's intent was in finding God. If it were,
and his search was to find the true Jesus, then he need look only to
Scripture. If you try to search for the God of the Bible while at the same
time discarding the clear and plain message of the Bible itself, then you
are even worse off than if you didn't search at all. And the fact that this
man's failed 'search for God' was transformed into a motion picture has only
served to delude millions of others.
    Yes, Jesus was truly human, but he was also truly God. He knew His
identity, and certainly never questioned His own identity. He clearly calls
himself "EGO EIMI," or "I AM," the covenant name for God in the Old
Testament. If you have any question as to his omniscience, then look to the
fact that He foretold His own death, the betrayal of Judas, the denial of
Peter, and His resurrection, as well as knowing the minds of others who
thought evil of Him without even uttering a word. As for His omnipotence,
look at the miracles. Christ as God was holy and without sin. Christ as man
was subject to the same physical fatigue that we are, and, yes, was also
tempted. But He was without sin.
    The church does not forget Christ's human aspects. Christ did not have
to wonder what it was like to be like other men, he WAS like other men,
insofar that he was fully human. But He led a sinless life, fulfilling the
law for us, and died as the once for all atonement sacrifice for sin. (cont)

    Was Christ tempted with thoughts of sexual sin? Nobody can say, it is
not recorded in Scripture. Being human, I can say that He probably was, but
yet He never acted upon it. He endured the greatest temptations ever known,
by Satan, and overcame every single one. How? From Scripture. "You shall not
live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God."
"You shall not tempt the Lord your God." "Worship the Lord, and serve Him
only." God, the Author of our Scriptures, used those same Scriptures to
defeat the temptation of Satan. Christians can and should read the
Scriptures daily to achieve the same ends. One man didn't, and his delusion
became the heresy known as "The Last Temptation of Christ."
    It is a Christian doctrine that stresses Christ's humanity as well as
His Deity. It is when this doctrine is discarded, that one becomes confused
concerning the Person of Christ.

Message: 69360
Author: $ Beauregard Dog
Category: Question?
Subject: JB/censorship
Date: 09/09/90  Time: 13:47:56

Does someone know your password?  Or was your question directed at the
Sysops?

Message: 69361
Author: $ Apollo SYSOP
Category: Answer!
Subject: Censorship? Last?
Date: 09/09/90  Time: 14:24:22

        Jeff....  I saw your post # 69336, and have not the foggiest idea as
to what you are talking about.  I can tell you one thing for sure...  I did
not CENSOR anyone's post! 

*=* the 'Mighty' Apollo SysOp *=*  <-clif- 

Message: 69362
Author: $ Melissa Dee
Category: Answer!
Subject: Censorship
Date: 09/09/90  Time: 14:50:57

I zapped two messages from Alfred Neuman.  Gee, JB, was that you?
You should be thankful.  Or, I could go ahead an post them now if you really
want.

Message: 69363
Author: $ Sandi Marlin
Category: War!
Subject: BIG bomb/little bomb
Date: 09/09/90  Time: 19:42:19

As I understand it, Dresden was destroyed and people were incinerated in
fairly horrible manner with perfectly normal old-fashioned bombs. Dead
non-military citizens are dead non-military citizens whether they are
cremated in flash fires from conventional bombs or nuclear ones. The only
difference is in the number of them you need to raze a city.

Message: 69364
Author: $ Steve MacGregor
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Beck
Date: 09/10/90  Time: 00:49:12

  Okay, that part worked.  Now try it on something harder.
  Take some physical phenomenon (your choice).  Describe what it's doing, or
something else about it, without using a model of any kind.

       ======  Pascal  =(O,O)=  Hoot!  MacProgrammer  ======

Message: 69365
Author: $ Rod Williams
Category: Question?
Subject: Sandi/be around
Date: 09/10/90  Time: 00:54:16

BUT where will you go?

Message: 69366
Author: $ Rod Williams
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Aspirin $8.89
Date: 09/10/90  Time: 01:10:09

I would think that $8.89 for 200 pills is fair.  That computes to less than
five cents a piece.  That's dirt cheap.

Workers need to make a living wage and by selling aspirin or anthing for
that matter at a fair market price is....fair.

Two hundred aspirin should last a person for years and if they don't then
the person should find a better cure than aspirin.  Or at least buy a elm
tree and eat it.

Taking pills, any type of pill is not a good idea.  You'd just be getting a
lot of old dinosaurs in the form of petro-chemicals.  

A street junkie will galdly pay $5-20 for a single pill.

That's my two (three) cents worth.

It seems as though the necessities should go lower and more affordable in
price and the not so necessities could go higher thus keeping some sort of
balance.  Homes and farm produce should be lower while aspirin and lawn
furniture should be higher.  (Everyone could enjoy building that lawn chair
and table on their own or with a friends help.)  The solution is in
economics and I do not fully understand the subject therefore I must
continue thinking on the subject until I find that missing piece of puzzle.

Message: 69367
Author: $ Rod Williams
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Jeff/coke-pepsi
Date: 09/10/90  Time: 01:24:10

I am not 100 percent positive on this but I think that the Coca-Cola Company
has first dibs on the mash of the cocaine plant with 98% of the cocaine
alkaloid removed.  Then Pepsi would be next in line....or wait a sec.,
perhaps it is done on a bid basis, the buying of the syrup, and let's say
that there is a First Mash and that is equivelant to Grade A Fancy and Coke
or perhaps Pepsi usually get that and the aftermarket, generic people who
bottle cola-like soft drink end up with the "cheaper" of the lot.

Coke IS made from the mash of the cocaine plant.  The Coca Leaf is grown is
one district of Peru for sole export to New Jersey and they, at a plant
located in that state, process it to remove the cocaine alkaloid for sell
and shipment to Federal Supply Houses where it is sold and used by the
Medical Profession.  

At one time the cocaine alkaloid was left in the plant and it stayed in the
drink, Coca-Cola and many other concoctions that were sold prior to the turn
of the past century.

Man learned better methods of leeching and became fairly good at removing
the cocaine alkaloid.  The cheaper coffee bean with its caffeine was brewed
and put in place of the somewhat more volatile cocaine alkaloid.  This was
about the time that medical science used large quanties of the white,
flake-like substance in their research.

They saw that it had many properties just as sugar and many other plants
have.  They found out that a liquidfied and concentrated dose injected into
a patients mouth by a dentist reslulted in a painless repair or extraction
although in those days, extraction fits better.

Sugar is much like the Coca Plant in that it too is a white substance
although it is more in crystal form than a flake.

Sugar is processed much in the same way.  A sugar cane plant is harvested
by mashing and boiling and beating and churning in order to obtain a clear
white substance leaving what we call a bi-product which is a dark, thick,
very rich, gooey substance which we named molasses (I happen to be holding a
bottle in my hand right now and then paused and took a swill; that'll damn
sure get rid of those headaches but so will snorting oxygen.).  This
molasses is full of wonderful things that interreact with the human animal
just as the syrup of the cola plant.

Caffeine is interesting also as one cup of it will often send my nerve
endings to the moon and back at twice the speed of light.  As far as I know
it is only second to cocaine by a small degree.

The chances of coffee or for that matter, beef and milk products becoming
illegal and labeled as a Danger to Mankind are real, capitalistically
speaking, SLIM.                         -Rod

Message: 69369
Author: $ Rod Williams
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Ann/Dolphins
Date: 09/10/90  Time: 01:51:14

The early Japanese people were taught that the Emporer was a living deity
and around the time of WWII the majority of the people living there believed
that He was.

I may be mistaken but I understand that the Emporer had sent out a dictate
that the people would prepare to die if necessary in a battle against a
vicious enemy.  (Whether we were vicious or not isn't the point but the
Japanese propaganda mill certainally advertised in the news that we were.)


One another hand the American people were taught the same thing about the
Japanese and a soldier in battle who has lost friends may not be as
forgiving as a saint.  Truman may have looked at the situation in the terms
of lost lives, dollars, homesick soldiers and a war that was dragging on and
on at a dear cost.

My wife's father was waiting in the Phillipines to invade Japan, beach
landing and all that.  If he had, as a forward observer, he most likely
would be dead and I never would have met Jasmine.

I still can see some "Pearl Harbor" in the President's decision to do the
second test on the cities, although events such as those are unfortunate
just as was the German death camps and the Inquisition to name a few.

Message: 69370
Author: $ Rod Williams
Category: Chit Chat
Subject: Ann/bomb
Date: 09/10/90  Time: 02:40:55

It would be nice indeed if the so-called smartest animal were above
considering ruthless methods on others while residing on this planets
surface.  It should most definitely be fun here, right?  But it's not
because the human animal, whether he wants to admit it or not, is still a
savage to this day. And from the looks of events we will remain savages for
a while to come.  At least more than one generation.

The most protected instinct is survival of self and if there is a
possibility, however real or imagined, that death will result by not taking
such and such action then rash decisions are sometimes made especially if
the decision rests with several dozen paranoid men who recently in memory
had most of their pacific fleet wiped out by a surprise attact by a nation
who had not officially declared war.

Sorry for the long sentence.

(Not getting off the subject.)  It is these bodies of heavy flesh that we
bear that are responsible for our more brutal actions.  We must protect
them from harm which includes keeping them a certain temp., feeding them and
letting them rest at least a third of their lives.

In our fear we become paranoid of its safety and that sometimes is a reason
we go to war against those we do not understand.  Economics is another
reason wars are made and then some are just old fashioned clan wars to
settle their differences on philosophy.

I suppose that the war between Japan and the U.S. was more economic in
nature.  In any case, during 1945 the paranoia and fear of losing their
loved ones, the majority showed support to the President on ending the war
as quickly as possible.  The U.S. military establishment was probably
looking at deaths in the millions, both Japanese and Americans, and thought
that 40-50 thousand deaths, especially those of the enemy, was a better
deal.
                                Rod